Organization

The following editorial was published in the New York Times on 26 December 2011. It follows a similar editorial in the Washington Post a week earlier.

Expanding Internet Domains

Come January, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers plans to allow businesses, nonprofits and others to apply for their own “top-level domain” with their own online suffix, like the familiar .com and .org suffixes that now rule the Internet.

Icann, the nonprofit that manages the Internet’s address system, says increasing the number of top-level domains will ease crowding and create opportunities for businesses to connect with consumers. For instance, Canon plans to buy .canon to put its Web sites in one spot and the American Bankers Association is reportedly considering .bank, where banks could offer secure online banking

ICANN has entered crisis talks over the new gTLD program following a month of heavy criticism and yet another letter from the US government asking it to delay things.

Following a barrage of criticism and a number of formal requests that the organization hold off on its 12 January launch date, we understand that ICANN's Board has started asking serious questions of its CEO and staff and has asked them to justify the decision to move ahead regardless of the increasing number of warnings.

The Board reportedly plans to hold a special meeting in the New Year, prior to the launch, to seek guarantees from the staff that the issues and concerns raised have been adequately dealt with and do not put the organization itself at risk. More details below.

To: The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, Chairman, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Ranking Member, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee

Dear Chairman Rockefeller and Ranking Member Hutchinson:

In response to the December 8 hearing regarding new generic top-level domains (gTLDs), we write to register our concern with the mischaracterization of elements of the gTLD program, and to communicate our support for new gTLDs.

The organizations signing this letter believe the introduction of new gTLDs will be innovative and economically beneficial, that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has conducted an inclusive and well-handled review of the program, and that preparations for gTLD introduction are sufficient to ensure Internet security and stability and to protect rights holders.

Congress of the United States

House of Representatives

Committee on Energy and Commerce

December 21,2011

Dear Dr. Crocker and Mr. Beckstrom:

Last week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing to examine the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) pending expansion ofthe generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) program. Although we believe expanding gTLDs is a worthy goal that may lead to increased competition on the Internet, we are very concerned that there is significant uncertainty in this process for businesses, non-profit organizations, and consumers. To that end, we urge you to delay the planned January 12, 2012, date for the acceptance of applications for new gTLDs.

At the December 18, 2011, hearing, ICANN's Senior Vice President Kurt Pritz detailed the process by which your organization developed the gTLD expansion program as well as additional protections that have been put in place to protect businesses and consumers.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," wrote Shakespeare in Henry VI, although he wisely put the words in the mouth of Dick the butcher.

Dick's solution must have seemed pretty attractive to ICANN's communications team earlier this week when it's first podcast in over nine months was duly censored by its legal department for containing the word... well, I can hardly bring myself to say it... the word "Nike".

What's even worse is that the name of the company is used in the most damaging of contexts: talking about shoes. And Nike is a shoe company. You can only imagine the fallout had it been allowed to go ahead.

The following letter was sent by ICANN's CEO Rod Beckstrom and published in the Washington Post on Saturday 17 December. It came in response to a highly critical editorial in the newspaper on Monday 12 December which called for the new gTLD program to be delayed and accused ICANN of being accountable to no one.

Plenty of .protections for the Web domain expansion

When I saw the Dec. 12 editorial “What’s the .rush?” I had to ask, “What .rush?”

The program of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to open the Internet to new top-level domain names (TLDs) has been anything but rushed. It took more than six years of thoughtful discussion, debate and study involving governments and intellectual property experts from around the globe. About 60 technical papers and independent reports, plus analysis of 2,400 comments, informed seven versions of carefully crafted rules that will govern the award of a new TLD.

Political pressure to delay or limit the program for potentially thousands of new Internet extensions has further increased with not one but two highly critical letters from the US establishment.

Writing to the organization responsible for the program, ICANN, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has produced a searing indictment of the organization's failure to tackle authentication issues with the domain name system over the course of a decade. It "urges" ICANN to introduce a "pilot program" rather than proceed with a full rollout in January.

A second letter sent to Commerce Secretary John Bryson from two House representatives - Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Congressman Howard Berman - also asks for a limited pilot program, this time arguing that it is needed to prevent widespread trademark infringement.

The two letters come following a tumultuous week for ICANN in Washington.

Kurt Pritz: Thank you everyone. I think it might have... there were two sets of hearings, one in front of the Senate full Commerce Committee last week that had some specific questions, you know, that was targeted at some specific questions regarding defensive registration costs and costs to trademark owners.

That, and then there was a hearing this week before a House sub-committee on commerce that didn't really have anything specific. And its title was more general in nature.

So, you know, I'll give you a few bon mots and encourage questions. But I think, you know, it probably would be better for somebody else that was witnessing that rather than me who was talking to report on what transpired because they probably have a more objective view. And a clearer view then me whose memory is all quite foggy about the thing.